Late fall is the traditional harvest season for olives.  We see neighbors spreading their plastic sheets under the trees to “catch” the olives that naturally drop on the ground.  At just the right moment, the olive pickers will go to the trees using various methods of either shaking branches, banging them with long sticks or olive combs, or the careful, concerned picker will hand pick them to keep them meticulously clean and unspoiled.

While walking my son to his kindergarten the other day I watched a couple of birds help a tree owner get a head start on the olive  harvest.  They were simply landing on the branches.  The weight of these birds was enough to shake the branches and the ripe olives were just falling off without hardly a nudge.  Unfortunately, this olive tree grower had no sheet down on the ground to catch the fruit.  Not only did I think this was wasteful, but, have you ever walked by an olive tree that’s not been cared for thru the harvest?  It makes a terrible mess. 

The olive tree is so complex, I can come up with so many lessons from propagation, to harvest, to the final desired product, I decided they may be broken up in different categories.  Since we are observing the harvest, I’ll begin with that.

In order to get the best quality end product, the olive needs to be picked at the precise moment it is ready.  Olive tree growers know how these fruits naturally just slide right off the branches and there is great ease in taking the fruits off. 

The most easiest and time saving method is to spread a tarp or sheet of plastic under the trunk, extending as far as the circumference of the tree in order to catch all the olives.  The ground must be covered to avoid the soil from the earth from coming into contact with the olive.  If the dirt and olives mix, sure, they can be washed, but, the olive fruit is so sensitive that the least contact with the earth increases acidity in the finished product one is seeking after.  The other drawback to this method is sometimes the fruits can be slightly damaged in the impact of the fall.  The olive is much more sensitive than many suspect.  Sure, it will produce good oil, but the BEST oil comes from un-bruised, clean fruit straight from the harvest.

Imagine how the Father sees us, His fruit.  He wishes to produce delicacies in the spiritual realm such as we produce yummy olives and the finest oil in the natural.  He is careful to warn us to be unspotted from the world.  He is telling us to spread that plastic tarp, and not to allow the earth to come in contact with our fruits. “Do not be deceived: "Evil company corrupts good habits." 1 Corinthians 15:33

The absolute best method of harvest though is the hand picking.  Of course, this is the most time consuming and tedious of tasks.  If you notice, to be harvest friendly, olive trees usually grow what seem to be horizontal in their branches rather than vertical.  This is not because the olive tree can not grow so tall, but, it is rather pruned purposely so that the hand picker doesn’t have to get so high.  Consider how much the Father loves us and how “tedious” a job maintaining our lives are to Him.  Luke 12:7 says, “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”   The Father  considers each and every fruit, He looks at it, knows just the right time of harvest, when it will slide off the branch easily, yet not over ripe so that spoilage has occurred.  He takes His loving hand and He gently picks us ourselves.  He is careful not to bruise us during the harvest, for He knows that there will be extracts of bitterness and acidity in the finished product if the fruit is damaged slightly before the due time of the process.  He knows sure enough that the fruit will encounter the unpleasant operation in order to produce the best possible product and He is ever so gentle in the transformation from the tree to the mill.  Our L-rd is so tender with us that He picks us with His own hands, and keeps us clean, and cradles us as we would a babe and loves on us until it’s time for Him to produce Himself in us, that we may reflect the finished product: Him perfected in us. 

Let’s look for a moment though at the thought of us being entrusted with a harvest.  A harvest of souls.  Like the natives who are awaiting their olive plenty, they have sheets spread out waiting to collect the olives as they fall.  They can collect massive quantities, and, the sheet to catch them keeps them clean from the earth.  Most can fall to the ground unscathed, but there may be a few that get bruised in the process or roll off the tarp.  These can almost be likened to the parables we read of the seeds.  It is inevitable that sometimes this is going to happen.  This most often happens in gatherings that are large when huge numbers come to accept Christ.  They can get lost in the cracks.  However, this also can happen when we fail to disciple the new believer.  “Make disciples of men” Yeshua told us.  He didn’t say, “see them saved and leave them there.” We must take the care that the Father took with us, hand picking, being careful not to bruise us, yet, ever so lovingly preparing us for His refiner’s fire to produce His gold.  The olive harvester escorts his olives to the local presses here, and makes arrangements to be sure he gets the oil from his olives.  Just as the Father is with us through all of our procedures in life, so it is with the person born anew.  We must see them through till their feet can stand on their own, and they can handle the pressures of life the L-rd allows in us thus creating His vessels of valor, vessels to hold His oil, His holy anointing on us, within us, to be used by Him to touch others. 

Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season.  2 Tim. 4:2a.  Just as those who spread their sheets, waiting for the harvest, preparation is vital for the believer.  Be prepared to give an account for the hope that is within you. 1 Pet. 3:15.  Hopefully we can be there to collect our harvest, picked by hand, careful not to bruise or soil the fruit.  However, if we have our spiritual tarps spread, leaving an opportunity every time for the soul that is ready to just fall onto our gathering cloth, we can pick them up, cradle them, love on them and help strengthen them in the word as they are being led down the path the Father has picked for them.  We must be available.  Consider the birds I mentioned earlier.  Resting on the branches of the ripened fruit and the olives fell onto the ground that was totally unprepared below.  If that olive tree owner had spread his cloth, he’d have reaped a bountiful harvest just in that one afternoon of birds finding his tree a comfortable resting place.  One never knows who is sowing, watering and harvesting.  Each and every one of us can easily be appointed to any of the above jobs.  Sure, someone else may shake your neighbors branch, but who’s to care for the harvest afterwards?  Our sidewalks here can be littered with fallen olives that get smashed under lots of walkers by.  They get trampled underfoot, and they often soil the sidewalk that takes lots of rain and sometimes a little scrubbing to get the walkway clean again.  If the olives stick to the bottom of your shoes and you enter a home with carpets down on the floors, you can potentially soil the carpet.  Those who harvest the olives and separate the stones from the fruit by hand wear plastic gloves because the olive juice is so potent that it will stain their fingers for quite a while.  Not only will it stain though, but it is quite bitter.  Have you ever tried to eat an olive that is ripe but not cured?  Well, my silly son convinced me to do it.  I’ll never forget that experience.  My throat burned for hours from the bitter juices that burst onto where used to be my tonsils!!  He just giggled and laughed, as he witnessed his mom bent at the waist, imitating a fire breathing dragon out on our very public sidewalk on the main street in our village!!  See, they studied olives at kindergarten, he knew how bitter they were.  (Dov had a good chuckle over that one!)

So it is with the untended harvest.  It’s a no wonder that the L-rd said about the lukewarm believer that He’d “spew them out of His mouth”. They’re like that bitter fruit, it was ripe, it was ready for salvation, but, left untended it’s life is a bitter mess, leaving stains all around and producing that “bad fruit” Nobody picked it up, no body tended to it, it was left to spoil.  May we all be available to Him for all the olives who are “ripe for the picking”.  Father, teach us how to escort your harvest to the spiritual olive press.  Help us to be good stewards with your groves.  May we see every life as a potential soul to be won over to You knowing and trusting Your timing and Your plans.  Help us to be ready in and out of season for Your good will and Your good pleasure.  In Jesus’ name.  Hallelujah and Amen.